I
It was funny how everyone thought that everything would always turn out fine.
The world kept spinning around our heads, even when we tried to ignore it as we walked through time and life. We would bump into things, causing eruptions where we had never intended them to be. Mistakes that we could never make right.
It was a never-ending cycle, one that could only be stopped by death.
And it had ended for my sister.
I swallowed against the warmth that settled beneath my eyes. My head spun around the image of the lifeless body that had laid in the casket, dark clothed men, and women around me as the silence started to sink deep into me.
I exhaled roughly, still so low that no one could hear.
Hours had passed.
Endless of silent hours.
A shudder ran through me as I gripped onto the sink. I stared into the mirror, into my own eyes, tired eyes… her eyes. They never should have closed.
The green of our eyes had almost been the exact same.
I swallowed.
There were so little things that had been different about us. The birthmark on her left cheek, the piece of my tooth that had broken off, those dimples of hers…
But now, as I looked at myself, I could only see her.
Her pale skin, the bruises, and those silent, lifeless eyes. They had stared into my soul as darkness had extended deep into me. It was the kind that never seemed to leave, the coldness that crept deeper and deeper inside whenever I closed my eyes.
I could still see her laying there. Her body cold, stiff and pale as she stared into the grey sky, the last thing she might have seen.
Had it been the last?
I did not know.
But somehow, despite everything, I still hoped it had been.
A sob sounded through the silence. It was so cold that only the warmth that ran over my cheeks brought my own image back to the surface. Staring into my eyes, I felt… nothing.
Lifeless eyes, just like my sister’s had been, gazed back at me.
I could only stare as I watched myself breath in- take in the air that should have been reserved for her. She had not deserved it. None of it.
I swallowed again.
My eyes drifted down, to where my hands laid clenched around the porcelain. They were nearly white, veins clearly visible beneath too thin, too pale skin. I could not let go.
Not as my sister’s body laid beneath the ground where I should have laid, buried beside those that had left this world before me. But no, nothing had turned out the way that it should have had.
Nothing turned out fine.
Because beneath that skin of mine, blood was still running through my veins. And underneath my ribs, my heart was still beating. I was still breathing.
My gaze drifted upwards again.
And as I stared into myself, I could not find a single piece of me.
The silence, that emptiness inside of me spread. Heart pounding fast, I could not do anything to linger the burning. I inhaled, breath hitching.
And I exhaled again.
There was nothing I could do. She had left me behind and had disappeared into another world I could not follow her to.
Empty green eyes stared back at me, showcasing the ruined girl my sister had left behind. Still wearing that black dress, I had dreaded to wear, my skin was unusually pale and my blonde hair a mess atop of my head.
And I could still remember my mother’s chocked sobs. My father’s silent tears.
Everything echoed through the back of my mind.
But I could feel nothing but hatred.
Hatred for myself.
Because it was me that had continued standing, breathing and me, the one with a heart that still beat. It was me. And not her.
A knock sounded on the bathroom door.
My lips clasped shut, I turned, expecting it to open. I stared for a second, but when nothing happened, I remembered- I had locked myself inside. And I had no idea how much time had passed.
But that did not matter.
It would never again.
“Celeste?”
I swallowed against the dread that filled me. Acid ran through my veins, burning through every layer. I could not utter a single word.
“Celeste- I know that you’re in there.”
My gaze was stuck to the door as I felt heaviness creep over me.
He knocked again, louder this time. I shuddered.
My fingertips felt frozen.
“We need to talk.” There was silence for some time. It was like I could see him run his hands through his brown hair, his shoulders hunched. My chest felt too tight.
“We need to talk through what happened, Celeste. We need to… we need to plan.”
I shuddered again.
Pinching my eyes closed, I shook my head as silent tears started to fall. I wrapped my arms around waist to keep myself together, but I could not stop the emotions that filled me. There was pain, so much of it echoed through my heart, my soul.
Everything had come to waste.
And it was my own damn fault.
A chocked inhale echoed around, but it was not mine. The sound was so unfamiliar, so strange to my ears. He was on the other side of the door, but by now, I had no idea what he looked like, what he thought or felt. I knew I should have known, just like I had always done.
But I didn’t.
He was there, not even far away and there was just wood that separated us. But there was so much more.
Those emotions inside of me whirled, a thunderstorm full of rage and ruin.
“Celeste,” he breathed. I felt nothing, though somehow everything all at once. This- no everything was too much.
“Celeste, open the door.”
I couldn’t move. The image of her was buried in my head, my heart. All this anguish, the pain she must’ve felt was my own by now. Because she would never feel again.
I had to do it for her now.
And it was my own goddamn fault.
The breath that I had been holding left me in a sob. My body shook with it.
“Please,” I heard him faintly. “Let me be there for you. Let me help. I need to… I need to make this right- Let me make this right.”
But nothing would ever be right again. And I shook. Even with everything that remained, everything that was once mine, that once felt so right, I couldn’t keep myself together. Everything had broken when I had looked at what had remained of my sister.
I would never be myself again.
“Please,” he repeated, pulling hard on the string on my heart that tied me to him. But that part of me didn’t feel. I didn’t even know if it was there anymore.
How could it be if she had left?
“Let me in,” he pleaded. My heart thundered against my rips. “Let me in, Celeste.”
My eyes fluttered open. Now there was only a single tear that dripped.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I just can’t.”
